Robb Willer

Who they are

The work of Robb Willer reaches this site through the papers listed below. On this site the name is tied to Conformity, Gossip, Reputation, Prosocial Gossip.

Key papers

Feinberg, M., Willer, R., Stellar, J., & Keltner, D. (2012). The virtues of gossip: Reputational information sharing as prosocial behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(5), 1015-1030. What it reports: Four studies. People who saw someone behave selfishly felt uneasy and wanted to warn others who might be exploited, and passing on the warning eased the feeling; people with stronger prosocial leanings were the most likely to share it, and the prospect of gossip encouraged cooperation.

Feinberg, M., Willer, R., & Schultz, M. (2014). Gossip and ostracism promote cooperation in groups. Psychological Science, 25(3), 656-664. What it reports: In group games, people readily passed on information about members who acted selfishly, and others used it to leave those members out. The possibility of gossip and exclusion raised contributions to the shared pot, and people who had been left out went on to cooperate at similar levels to the rest.

Feinberg, M., Willer, R., & Keltner, D. (2012). Flustered and faithful: Embarrassment as a signal of prosociality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(1), 81-97. What it reports: Five studies. People who embarrassed more easily reported more prosocial tendencies and behaved more generously, and observers rated embarrassed people as more prosocial, trusted them more and wanted to affiliate with them.

Key ideas

Conformity: Changing what you say or do to match a group, including when you can see the group is wrong.

Gossip: Everyday talk about who did what, the low-cost end of norm enforcement.

Reputation: What a group collectively believes about a person's conduct, updated as people share what they have seen.

Prosocial Gossip: Passing on a warning about a person's selfish conduct to those who might be affected.

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